kmkat and her kneedles

WIP Wednesday.

Here we have the linen stitch scarf as it existed on Monday afternoon. You may be surprised at how little it has grown since last you gazed upon it. This is because I frogged the @#^#$% thing and started over. Multiple times. I'm pretty sure what we have here is what will become -- someday -- the finished product.

I can knit complicated cables and I have knit a lace shawl [pretty much] to perfection. But give me a two-stitch pattern and it gives me fits. *K1 sl1* and repeat from * across? *K2tog YO* (ditto)? I can screw those up seven ways to Sunday.

I think the problem is that the stitch almost mindless, the key word here being "almost". My needles are flying while I am binge-watching House on Netflix as I did last weekend (more on that later), and bango! Suddenly the stitches are not lining up the way they ought. What has helped on this iteration is leaving all the markers on the needle. Every 20 stitches I have a badly needed reality check.

* * * * *

You may remember I mentioned that Yarnover was last weekend. Tragically, I caught the cold that Younger Son had generously shared with Smokey, and I felt way too wretched to venture out in public, not to mention I would have been sharing my disgusting germs with a couple hundred knitters and other fiber folk. So I spent the weekend alternately sleeping and grumping and binge-watching the aftermentioned House. 

When I mentioned to YS what I had been watching, he looked askance.

"Can't you sum up the plot of that show in a four-panel cartoon?" he asked.

He may be right, but it wasn't until episode 10 or 11 that I felt the writers were slipping a little. Besides, Hugh Laurie is a fabulous actor, and I found myself admiring Dr. Cuddy, the female director of medicine. She continually spars with House but respects him for his abilities. Don't know how far I will go with the series, but it certainly kept my mind off my miseries last weekend.

Ten on Tuesday, the post-vacation edition.

Carole is feeling a bit dejected because her vacation is over. She asked us for some help in lifting her mood.

 

photo credit: Patrick McConahay via photopin cc

 

Ten Good Things About Coming Home From Vacation. 

1. Sleeping in one's own bed with the perfect mattress and the perfect pillow and the perfect quantity and weight of blankets and the perfect ambient temperature.
   
   
2. No more laundramats. Washer and dryer just a few steps away.
   
   
3. No more sand. In everything.
   
   
4. Reunion with beloved pets.
   
   
5. Reunion with beloved job. Well, this one maybe not so much.
   
   
6. Reunion with belov--, well, with own car, with its own long-familiar quirks and settings.
   
   
7. Return to familiar routine. Change, i.e., vacation, = good; stability, i.e., familiar routine = good, too.
   
   
8. Comfort of one's own home, arranged and furnished and decorated according to one's own taste. 
   
   
9. Access to full contents of closet, not just part that fit into suitcase. Hello, beloved ratty bathrobe! Hello, favorite clogs that were too heavy to pack!
   
   
10. Opportunity to flaunt one's tan/photos/tales of exotic adventure before one's colleagues and bask in their envy. No sin in this, just a fact of life. As long as returnee limits her flaunting to modest levels. If modest levels exceeded, all bets off.
    
    
11. Did I mention sleeping in one's own bed? The importance of this cannot be overstated.

Spring is springing.

Saturday's walk. The spring peepers were so loud I had to
turn up the volume on the audiobook I was listening to.

 

Links whilst I am Yarnover-ing.

photo credit: Vitamin-K via photopin cc

The worst architectural disaster that never happened. Read a bit more here.

We may need this.

Doggie birthday!

Sapiosexual.

Playing Jenga... with heavy construction equipment.

See graphic ratings of your favorite TV programs. 

Children's books rewritten for adults.

A different take on that classic dishcloth pattern. And another one.

Where cubicle farms came from.

Best tattoo ever.

Starfish baby.

This sweater intrigues me.

Leopard in a hoodie.

No negativity!

A desk to keep your cat happy. And here is the chair to go with it.

Color and perception. And the science behind it.

This one is for the Canadians!

25 things you may not know you can recycle.

Knitting objects.

Links from Chris.

23 years of schooling are about to come to an end.

Elder Son called this morning to say he had turned in his master's thesis, Long-Term Medical and Psychiatric Effects of Juvenile Incarceration. He emailed me a copy, but I will not reproduce it here for copyright reasons, not because I fear you might click away long before reaching page 32. Let me give you the punch line.

A history of juvenile incarceration was significantly associated with hepatitis C and post-traumatic stress disorder...and with suicide attempt in the past year, migraines, and depression.

Speaking of migraines, he also sent me this:

which explains why I no longer have migraines, yay! Also, did you notice that migraine is misspelled two of the three times it appears on the chart?

Younger Son was in Washington DC last week doing his first solo install of a storage system. It was at a Coast Guard building. He sent us a photo of the elevator buttons arranged as though on a ship:

 

Springing Sunday.

As usual, first you get the mutterings.

1. Steady :: boyfriend.
2. Sleep :: deprived.
3. Thumb :: and forefinger.
4. Straighten :: up.
5. Wake up! :: NO!
6. Diminish ::  -ing returns.
7. Scarred :: for life.
8. Horn :: of plenty.
9. Pace :: car.
10. Correspondence :: writing.

* * * * *

As you may remember, earlier this week we got a foot (12"! 30cm!) of snow. Today the temp is 70℉ (21℃). Ah, spring in The North. Will we get another dump of snow? I say no. Let's hope I am right. 

photo credit: Bill Gracey via photopin cc

On Friday I saw two wood ducks on the lake. In all my life I don't think I have ever seen one in the wild, although I have seen dozens, if not hundreds, of wood duck houses erected by hopeful bird enthusiasts. They are a beautiful bird, as you can see in the photo. Sadly, this pair seemed to be transiting on their way north, gone the next day.

Beside the wood ducks, there have been Canada geese (many, many) and trumpeter swans (two) (the ones in the photo below may not be trumpeters because Wikipedia informs me that the latter generally swim with a straight neck; a lake neighbor more knowledgeable than I identified the ones on our lake as trumpeters),

photo credit: Peter aka anemoneprojectors - camera busted! via photopin cc

and coots (aka mud hens).

photo credit: TexasEagle via photopin cc 

No loons yet.

* * * * *

Remember the 600 stitches I cast on for the linen stitch scarf, then ripped out because the colors did not have enough contrast? And re-cast on 600 stitches with completely different yarns? I knat and knat upon them for a couple weeks, but last night I screwed up an entire row. The thought of tinking that row set me back a bit; upon further reflection -- and realizing just how long that scarf was going to be, somewhere between nine and eleven feet (2.7 and 3.3 meters), just as a commenter remarked a few posts ago -- I decided the best thing to do would be to frog it and start over again with fewer stitches.

While I was at it, I rewound the three yarns into new cakes. I love doing that. I will rewind center-pull balls/skeins into cakes just because I like them. We takes our fun where we finds it.

Today I re-cast on, 420 stitches this time, and I am halfway through the first row. My knitterly friends have rescheduled our linen stitch scarf tutorial for next Friday. I should have an inch or two of progress to show by then.

Netflix has provided me with some excellent knitting viewing:  The Inexplicable Universe with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Because the presentation is 95% NDT talking, with very few visuals, it is perfect for knitting. The subject matter so far, astrophysics and cosmology and relativity and quantum physics and string theory, has always fascinated me, even though it is beyond my understanding*. I love this stuff the same way Smokey loves the Sunday morning talking heads shows and the PBS nightly news hour.

* In the words of John von Neumann, "In mathematics** you don't understand things. You just get used to them." So true.***

** And quantum physics.

*** While googling to be sure I had that quotation correct, I found this. (Scroll down to the Foot Shooting Agreement.)

Spring links uncover winter's garbage.

photo credit: jbdenham via photopin cc

Want.

The man in the yellow hat goes to therapy.

Batman logo in an unlikely place.

Are librarians an endangered species?

Offered without comment.

Nap attack!

Atmospheric carbon problem contributing to global warming... solved!

Damn, we missed this when we were there.

Homeopathy = bunk.

Found money.

Movie character business cards.

Guard your snack! The animals are at it again.

If at first you don’t succeed, redefine success.

I get this now, having watched half of The Avengers movie.

Whoa!

When raccoons are sneaky.

I thought this was a tilt shift photo when I saw it.

For science nerds.

Swedes are awesome.

Some facts about blood loss.

Classic album covers...from the other side.

Universal rules for subway maps.

Need a pencil? Try one of these.

Kitty death wiggle (caution if you are at work: there is music that will automatically start playing).

Knitting behind bars.

Science.

 

Winter, go home. You're drunk. (redux)

I would love to show you some photos of the 12" (twelve inches!) of snow we got over the past day and a half, but my computer will not recognize my camera, and LastPass (which I installed after reading about the Heartbleed security screwup) refuses to allow my iPhone access to Gmail. 

Sometimes I almost wish for pre-digital days. Almost. But in those days I didn't have a blog and hadn't met any of youse guys so...

First, the snow. It started sometime Tuesday night or the wee hours of Wednesday. When I got up Wednesday morning to let the dogs out, the words out of my mouth do not bear repeating on this (mostly) family-friendly site.

There were only a few inches on the ground at that point, which were not enough to keep me from a scheduled appointment and multiple errands. 

The snow continued all day Wednesday and into the night. This morning, Thursday, it was deep enough (twelve inches!) that we called Doug The Plow Guy to rescue us. Smokey had planned to plow it himself, but at some point he remembered that Da Yeep had not been started in a month and would most certainly require a charger. Charger (on wheels) is roughly the size of a floor model humidifier but heavier, and he did not relish the idea of dragging it through a foot (did I mention we got twelve inches?) of wet heavy snow up the driveway hill to the detached garage.

Call Doug The Snowplow Guy.

Second, the camera. No idea why it is not talking to the computer. Probably a poltergeist or a gremlin hiding somewhere. 

Third, LastPass. This is a $12 program that generates a really, really random password for every site that you tell it and stores them in its online vault (heavily encrypted, multiply firewalled, and probably protected by some Dumbledore-created charm). As I was working my way through my nine pages (nine pages!) of sites that require a password I chanced to wonder just how this was going to manage to screw up my life.

When I tried to use my iPad last night I found out.

Today's task is figure out how to get LastPass on my iPad and iPhone, assuming that is even possible. Somehow I cannot imagine that BoingBoing/Gizmodo/Lifehacker would have recommended the program if it were not iGadget compatible. I hope.

.

.

.

Well, Doug The Plow Guy came... and got stuck. Smokey is out there right now attempting to free Doug's truck with Da Yeep. 

Will I make it to my 3 pm meeting? Stay tuned...

 

Can you stand an April Fool's joke sixteen days late?

Ten on Tuesday, the outdoor edition.

(I am back in the ToT movement. Somehow I had unsubscribed, don't know how, but Carole and I got it worked out. Thanks, Carole!)

Ten Things I Like To Do Outside. 

1. Knit on the deck.
   
   
   
   Sometimes I listen to an audiobook, sometimes I listen to the wind and the lake. Either way, it is delightful. And I always have some devoted companions.
   
   
   
2. Eat outside.
   
   
   
   Smokey has always been skeptical about eating al fresco but I love it. At home we tend to eat on the three-season porch, but there are several restaurants around here -- not necessarily fancy ones, either, maybe just a bar with a kitchen -- with outdoor seating areas. Perfect place for a beer and a burger salad!
   
   
   
3. Walk.
   
   
   
   I haven't been able to do this for years, but I think my new hip may allow me to start again as soon as the roads dry up a bit more. I like to do this with an audiobook, too. (Easily bored here.) My neighbor and I used to walk at least a mile every morning, and Bear always went along, never on a leash, but content to wander and sniff at interesting things. But we had a falling out, and now she has Alzheimer's. 
   
   
   
4. Watch my garden grow.
   
   
   
   I planted supervised the planting of a flower bed right outside the front door. We have a bench on the front stoop, and it makes a perfect place to watch someone else dig.
   
   
   
5. Watch the activity on the bird feeder.
   
   
   
   Okay, I am inside when I do this, but the birds are outside. So there.
   
   
   
6. Drive with the sunroof open. 
   
   
   
   Technically, this may not be an outdoor activity, but I'm gonna count it anyway. One of my fondest memories of our boys growing up is driving to work in Minneapolis on an April morning with Younger Son beside me. (There was employer-provided day care on Saturdays during busy season, and even though he was at least ten at the time, he liked to go with me because he had made friends there over the years.) Anyway, the sunroof was open and through it we watched the eagles (or maybe they were turkey vultures) soaring overhead as we drove up the hill out of the St Croix river valley.
   
   
   
7. Camping in the mini-mini-motorhome. 
   
   
   
   For me this mostly involves reading and knitting in a camp chair. Not much different from being at home, really, but Lake Superior is a tad bigger than our (100-acre) lake. No mosquitoes there, either.
   
   
   
8. Swat mosquitoes.
   
   
   
   Not a favorite thing, but an inevitable one.
   
   
   
9. Check for ticks. Ditto.
   
   
   
   
   
10. As you can tell by careful reading, I may love the outdoors but I don't necessarily like to be in the outdoors. I like to observe it at a distance, preferably from behind a screen. So there is no number ten here. Still looking forward to spring, though...

 

Sunday as usual.

1. Shame :: anguish.
2. Business :: as usual.
3. Cats :: yes!
4. Green :: Green Party.
5. Politics :: sooo tired of.
6. Boston :: driving.
7. Healthy :: as a horse.
8. Pint :: ale.
9. Owner :: car.
10. Sorrow :: sad.

* * * * *

Elder Son had his last day of medical school on Friday. This was a red-letter day, one he has been waiting for for a l-o-n-g time. Finally he can escape the Evil Upper East Side Medical School Dedicated To Wealth And Prestige. When he went to retrieve his car from a friend's apartment parking lot in Jersey where it had been stored for two months, he found it had a flat tire. 3am call to me, asking for Smokey's phone number at work: always call Dad for car advice. He had planned to drive into Manhattan during the wee hours so as to avoid traffic as he picked up his stuff from the dorm. Didn't happen. He did manage to have the car towed to a tire place, get the tire fixed, drive into Manhattan with somewhat less traffic than on a weekday, get his stuff, and escape, all without any tickets or accidents. He is now back in Ann Arbor and is finishing his grad school thesis.

Graduation ceremonies for med school and grad school are both in early May. Which means, for us... road trip!

* * * * *

Younger Son is back from Las Vegas and here for the weekend. Ser Percy was very glad to see him. I haven't seen that dog's tail wag that fast ever before. The reunion reminded us of YouTube videos of returning vets being reunited with their dogs.

YS said that, yes, he did gamble while in LV -- one dollar into a slot machine. "I lost the whole thing!" he reported.

* * * * *

Both the back and sleeves of Fairfield are done to the armhole shaping. I haven't had the undisturbed time to knit that that will require so I started a mindless project.

The first six rows of a linen stitch scarf.

The knit get-together that would have taught three of us how to make a linen stitch scarf got postponed until later this month because of a blizzard. I had cast on the 600 st required for a long narrow scarf and had knit the first three rows from the pattern before the blizzard, but I decided my colors did not contrast enough with each other (yellow, pale blue, and pale green -- Easter egg colors). So I frogged and restarted yesterday with different colors. The new one will be a regular riot of color -- NOT! -- dark gray, light gray, and this:

Marks & Katten Fame.

of which I used the first half of the skein in my Daybreak scarf:

Right now I seem to be in the blackish part of the skein so it doesn't show up well, but that will change. Aside: 600 stitches takes a lot of yarn. This scarf may be narrower than I expected..

 

Twelve-step links (for the twelfth of April).

World's oldest socks.

The wisdom of Franklin.

Landscape interpreted through knitting.

Required reading for all book club members.

Coordinated office wear.

Can you stand to read a little more about our county board election?

Best ob/gyn EVAH.

Accidental dismemberment.

Does your job follow you home at night? Move to France.

Without a pattern.

Reminds me of something.

America's most fascinating libraries.

Fingerprint!

And the award for best color design goes to... this!

Key cozy!

Do read the comments.

In an alternate universe...

Doctor Zhivago was published because the CIA saw it as a fine propaganda tool.

"This, after all, is real poetry." (Thanks, Gayle!)

Links from Chris.

Animated gifs.

If this is April, I am doing our taxes. And taking iPhone photos.

Yes, like many of you, I am doing our taxes. This is the first time in years I haven't had to extend them because I was way too busy in March and April to do them. Retirement is sweet.

Beverage for these taxing days:

That's coconut flavored sparkling water on the left, lime on the right.
Lime colada (non-alcoholic, because taxes)!

 

And the hat that is my traditional one for doing the taxes (assuming two years in a row counts as tradition).
Note: my eyes actually point in the same direction. Don't know what was going on here.

 

First blooms of spring, observed outside the government center yesterday
when I turned in my final expense report.

 

Not only did they dismember this stuffed draft-blocker, they later ripped open the garbage bag
where Smokey had put all the pieces. Then they repeated this scene, complete with innocent expressions.

Tuesday cheer!

 

 

Sent to me by one of my co-trustees on the humane society board. He sends the best stuff!

Muttering on a Sunday.

1. Rabbit :: Hop.
2. Judged :: American Idol.
3. Produce :: Lettuce.
4. Bank :: Money.
5. Standard :: Normal.
6. Mister :: In-Between.
7. Tissue :: Kleenex.
8. Summon :: Court.
9. Selfishly :: Mine!
10. Chatting :: Online.

* * * *

Last weekend Younger Son got into cleaning my kitchen. (Be still, my heart!) When he got to the stove, he decided I needed new burner pans and rings; not only did he decide that, he went onto Amazon and bought me some.

I still can't figure out why he thought I needed new ones.

* * * * *

He is currently at the NAB show in Las Vegas, as I mentioned in an earlier post. He sent some photos from his first day.

Airport? Conference center? Hotel on The Strip? Doesn't matter -- palms and sun and 60˚!

 

Pre-show.

 

Where to start? (Not YS in photo.)

 * * * * *

In other fabulously fascinating news, I watched The Avengers yesterday. Having seen numerous references to Tom Hiddleston, Loki, and Thor on the 'net, I decided I wanted needed to know what it was all about.

Actually, I lie. I watched the first hour, got interrupted, and decided I didn't need to watch the rest. I know who Loki and Thor are and what Asgard is now.

Edited to add: Looks like I watched that movie just in time. Or I wouldn't have understood this.

* * * * *

In knitting news, I am up to the armholes on the back of Fairfield and nearly to the armhole shaping on the sleeves.

As usual, red yarn is impossible to capture accurately.

There is a faint possibility that I may knit my way straight through this sweater, which would be a first for me. I always get distracted by smaller projects -- scarves, mittens, hats, what-have-you. Let's keep our fingers crossed...

If this is April, where is spring (links)?

photo credit: GollyGforce - Living My Worst Nightmare via photopin cc

Click on this familiar dog.

Links from Chris & Chaos. And more links from Chris & Chaos.

What to use this for? It is intriguing. 

Lest you think I only share really fine bits of knitting with you, here's this.

Then there are these socks.

"It’s like, Head: definitely Big Friend, note eyes and noise-hole."

Found on Pinterest: this photo, pinned by The Bloggess. Note my comment.

Another fabulous pin from Jenny.

You may have seen this, but the facts are still amazing.

Cats: still confounding.

Haunted soda machine in Seattle.

This is fabulous.

Nintendium.

Yarn bombing EVERYWHERE!

When I die...

Some folks just won't follow directions.

Opening a can could be easier.

you at least have a chance to cut the guy’s arm off before he can shoot you.

"...you at least have a chance to cut the guy's arm off before he shoots you."

Perhaps the Scandinavian countries are not quite as heavenly as we may be led to believe.

Pencils!

Obi-Wan was not completely sold on the movie.

Go. Buy some graham crackers in support.

We have all been here.

Need a circular swatch? Try this idea.

 

 

Friday.

We got 10.5" (26.5cm) of snow last night and today. (Bah, humbug.) Two of my knitterly friends and I were going to meet a fourth knitterly friend to visit a yarn store, have lunch, and have friend #4 teach us how to make a linen stitch scarf. It would have been a 46 mile trip, one way. K, who would have driven, emailed yesterday that her Jeep could make it through anything and that she was not afraid to drive. (I replied that she was one badass mofo. She agreed.)

Yesterday I watched Skyfall on Netflix and cast on 600 stitches for the scarf (I decided I wanted the long skinny version). Skyfall = 2 hr, 23 min = exactly the right amount of time to cast on 600 stitches. Win!

 

But this morning reality dawned and we realized that the two of who were going to park and meet her would end up having our cars blocked in when the snowplows went by. 

Crud.

But we will reschedule this little outing for later in the month. Maybe winter and blizzards will be over by then.

Maybe.

Not everyone is disappointed with the weather.

Younger Son and most of his company are leaving tomorrow for the NAB convention in Las Vegas, so Ser Percival The Energetic is staying with us. As you can see, he is tremendously despondent at being separated from his Poppa. Misha tries in vain to cheer him up, but he is inconsolable.

Not.

He cried piteously for the first hour or so after YS left last Sunday, but he has bonded to us now. He snuggles up in the bed at night and follows me around during the day. In the evening he attempts to slime up onto my lap. Sometimes I let him do it, the 65-pound lapdog.

Life goes on.

Thanks for all your good wishes. I was sad to lose my race for a fourth term on our county board of supervisors, but my biggest fear was not losing myself but rather having Operation Prosperity/local teabaggers/possible outside money prevail overall in the election.

That did not happen. My guys have a 9-6 majority on the new board, and a 12-3 majority on passing a strong shoreland ordinance later this year. That last issue was what I stressed to everyone I spoke to: over 50% of the property tax dollars in this county come from lakeshore property, and if our water quality declines because of overdevelopment or development too close to the water, there goes our tax base. Apparently enough people in the county get that. 

 

Smokey is kinda pleased at the results. He wanted me to win because he knew I wanted it, but he is happy that I won't be spending all that time on committee meetings and such. I can understand that completely.

Looks like I will be having a lot more free time.

Just substitute "Polk" for "Iron".

226 Kienholz
233 Hallberg